Confluence
by Celeste Aislin
Summary: Sara knew what she was. She was an intelligent, attractive woman. She was a professional first and foremost, a workaholic. She was emotionally unstable. And she was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, pregnant.
1. Chapter 1

So, I haven't watched CSI in a few years. To begin with, I was never someone who waited around for new episodes...no, I was the girl who Tivoed marathons off SPIKE and only became particularly hooked when I began wondering about the strange tension between Grissom and Sara. It was only after I had the confirmation that I'd been right all along that there was something MORE between them that I felt I could stop the TIVO madness. For reasons I really don't understand myself, yesterday I had the sudden urge to go look up their romance again. I watched clips. I enjoyed reading through some fanfiction. At 5 AM I thought myself satiated. HA! I woke up with this idea in my head, and decided "Why the heck not?" I believe it's set roughly around the episode Nesting Dolls, but that may or may not change depending on where it goes. I will say this: it isn't what you expect from what I have here.

Disclaimer: Oh, the usual applies.

- Confluence -

They had had sex. She wanted to call it making love, but really you couldn't say it was anything but quick, desperate sex, the result of one too many flirtations, too few actual acknowledgments. When it all came crashing down, when reality returned after those breathless moments, the pain of what they had accomplished and destroyed with a singular act weighed more heavily than if they had remained in limbo for eternity. It was so much easier for Sara to write him off as her unavailable authority figure, one whose love she desperately wanted and needed all for some deeply based, subconsciously psychological reason, before she'd found herself atop his immaculate desk, and him inside her, their bodies moving as though nothing else in the world mattered but that moment…

The sharp sting of her abdominal muscles brought her out of her reverie, and in what she hoped was not an obvious motion, she moved her hands, initially clasped tightly in her lap, to the offending muscle, adding just an ounce of pressure to ease the pain, make it bearable. She could only deal with one set of painful, and the man sitting behind that damn desk in front of her monopolized her body and mind's supply of it.

Rather than stare at him, she stared at the stacks of paper, the odd collection of objects, wondering darkly, _Have I just been part of this collection?_

Grissom cleared his throat, not yet daring to raise an eyebrow at her presence, but all the same curious why she was forcing yet another encounter on them. Her existence had seemed nothing short of an annoyance to him since… well, she couldn't really blame him. Or she could, but her own expectations had bottomed out so far that to blame him was to dismiss all she knew of him. His avoidance of her as anything but a respected coworker, his treatment of her as a pariah, that had all begun long before that singular contradictory event in his office months ago. It began the moment she agreed to stay in Vegas for him.

She swallowed hard as the weight of her loneliness swept itself up as bile rising in her throat. The acceptance of what they had done would never come. The acceptance of _them_ was a fantasy she no longer had the luxury for.

Another contraction of her abdomen made her wince, and before he could raise that offensive eyebrow, before he could ask questions or draw conclusions, she broke the awkward silence.

"I have…a favor to ask of you."

Sara knew what she was. She was an intelligent, attractive woman, though long overdue for some personal care. She was a professional first and foremost, a workaholic, her drive for success so deeply ingrained in her that to do anything but accomplish everything was to fail. Perhaps this was a sort of neurosis, but to be honest, it had been that professionalism and work ethic and habit which saved her from the place she so desperately wanted to spiral down to.

If anyone noticed her weight loss, they didn't mention it. If anyone thought she seemed withdrawn, they seemed to appreciate it over her snapping, self-destructive other self which had dominated her on and off for four years, its presence more and more well-known in the last half year. Perhaps they thought she had finally gotten help. Perhaps they took the overtly strained, oppressive tension and silence between she and Grissom as something to smile behind their hands about, because it meant something rather than nothing.

Or it was possible that no one noticed, which Sara found herself more accustomed to and familiar with than anything. Because above all else, Sara was a loner.

And she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was also pregnant.

Again, I swear to you, it's not what you think, I jut couldn't figure out how to better set it up... Thanks for reading! There might be more, there might not be, I will no longer assume I know what my writing will and won't do for me!


	2. Chapter 2

Wow. First of all, I am absolutely floored by the amount of reviews. Thank you all so much, I was honestly surprised and deeply touched by the kind words. Generally speaking, I am not a particularly good updater, but this story has been swimming around in my head now enough that I feel I can put a bit more down. Hopefully, this will continue. Also in general terms, I wouldn't call such tiny updates...updates. But I'd rather give something than nothing, since so many asked for it! Thank you all again!

Disclaimer: Oh you know the drill.

- - Confluence - -

...Chapter 2...

"You want to move to day shift?" Grissom seemed genuinely surprised by her request, which might have rankled Sara at one point. She had once asserted that he didn't notice much of anything; she had been a vegetarian for years before she had to straight up announce it to him and watch it click with the request he'd made of her, to do the cleanup of a case-related experiment and remove raw meat which she hadn't touched in since a previous experiment, also of his doing. Grissom saw only what he wanted to see, what he was searching for, what was convenient and necessary at that moment.

_Please God_, she begged to a being she didn't even believe in, _don't let him look for this_.

"I need a change of pace," Sara replied. She pursed her lips at that eyebrow raise. Why should he expect more of an explanation than that from her? Who was he to? Did he believe he deserved one?

Of course he did. He was her superior, and he was Grissom. The simple, politically correct answer would never do; he needed a why for the reason. Not because it was her, Sara knew, but because it was how he functioned.

She could tell him the truth, she knew: that it took all her will and energy to enter a dark crime scene, oppressive because it was unknown and terrifying because there was too much that could hide in the dark. At one time she might have felt that metaphorically, even perhaps let out a mirthless chuckle, but now she felt it physically. The dead lying in pools of their own blood, surrounded by police tape and the ghosts of truth could no longer protect her; nothing could protect her. What had once invigorated and thrilled her now terrified her so thoroughly to her marrow that she felt another bubble of bile rising to the call at simply the thought of it.

Even if she wanted to, even if she could pretend everything was as it had been, her body's refusal had been growing. Each night she worked it took more out of her to step over the threshold of a victim's home. She felt the exhausting, all-consuming terror creep up on her along with the telling tingle up her spine as the fine hairs stood on end while she walked down long hallways, smelled the mixture of iron and fear on the thickened air. Her own fear began deep in her stomach, spreading lead to her limbs and a strangled ball of adrenaline next to her beating heart. She'd hear the rush of blood past her eardrums, drowning out everything while the darkened doorway beckoned.

Sometime within that eternity she would reach the victim, and with a startling suddenness the face of the dead would become her own, a waking nightmare nothing but the light of day allowed her to escape from. With daylight, the arms that grabbed her from behind, the sharp tip pricking her jugular and mixing iron with the acrid smell of her own fear and his heavy sweat…in the day, it dissipated; with the day, it had never happened.

Sara looked to Grissom, noticing the veiled concern in his eyes. Not what she wanted or needed. He couldn't look too closely at this. If he looked at her, if he began to piece things together, if he figured it out… None of it was so terrible as the idea of Grissom knowing.

And if she stayed here, he would know. Whether as a coworker, a supervisor, a once-friend…or even a screwed up lover, she allowed herself concede, he'd see the signs. She couldn't hide them forever. Especially not in the dark.

She could not say why it was she so desperately needed to hide from him, from all of them. She just knew she needed it, couldn't handle any of this with the alternative. No one could know. Herself knowing was enough.

"Just… would you do me this, as a favor, for old time's?" she tried to crack a smile, to lead him to the necessary conclusion.

His gaze continued, searching her, an awkward pause between them. No longer did he seem surprised by her request, but Sara didn't know whether she could believe that was the extent of his searching looks. With any other man, she knew she could have trusted he'd make the obvious assumption: the strain of their relationship was too much for her, and she was asking for a way out. They'd never addressed that one time in his office, after all. Nothing between them professionally had changed, save perhaps that there had been fewer moments alone, less conversation as they both worked to avoid the other. Emotionally they had both distanced themselves of course, instinctively knowing the line they had crossed couldn't be uncrossed, and neither was willing to make a step to draw a new one. But this was Grissom, Grissom who could never be trusted to make all the obvious connections, even when they were the truth.

_Let him think it's about that, _she begged. _Let him be like any other man this once, and not a scientist, not so...him. Let him forget all he knows about me, about us, about how long I've loved and wanted and waited for him. Let him have never understood it. _ Truthfully, until that moment, Sara had always believed Grissom hadn't understood her. She realized with this anxiety, however, that that had been her own safety mechanism, something to soften the blow of how much his rejection hurt. He had understood her feelings. They just hadn't been enough.

Strangely, the rejection she must have subconsciously thought she could never handle was a feather-light whisper rather than the gaping, fleshless hole she always imagined it would be. This, this she could survive. It was familiar, his rejection, something palpable and known, next to what lay in the dark, breathing heavily in wait for her.

Perhaps Grissom, in his knowledge of her past behaviors, believed their situation temporary, hoped she'd bridge that gap anew, take back what was done and let things settle back to where they had consistently resided, to him a pleasant limbo. Was that where his surprise came from, that this was her chosen path? Whatever reasoning for his not making a step, for further rejecting her, Sara no longer managed the will to care, so long as it didn't effect this effort of hers. If Grissom did know her, he might recognize this, her calling it quits, as a reaction to something more than awkwardness potentially. They had suffered through awkward before. Would he believe this was enough for a final straw?

She changed her begging wish. _Doubt yourself, Grissom. _She selfishly whispered internally. _Doubt how much you ever meant to me. Doubt how much I can take, doubt how strong I am _–she had to laugh a little at herself for _that_ assertion. _Accept this one thing at face value._

"All right." Sara felt a tingle of triumph from somewhere within her depths, steadfastly clasping hands with a deeper sorrow. It was all so far away though, and she so close to numb to that old Sara, that she simply nodded, standing and leaving in a haste which perhaps furthered what she wanted Grissom to believe: that she was leaving him, rather than running from him, the things in the dark, and what he might see.

...

See? I told you it wasn't as simple as it might've initially seemed! Let me know what you think!


End file.
